Those of you acquainted with the solo career of former Roxy Music guitarist Phil Manzanera, may be aware of Simon Ainley as vocalist and second guitar on 801 Live at Manchester University 02/11/77 and an earlier Manzanera studio release entitled Listen Now. I met up with Simon at his east Midlands home in March 1998 to look back on his musical career in the late seventies and early eighties. At the time of the interview he had begun to write songs again with a view to recording a few demos with local musicians. Since then things have moved on, solo DIY recording at home has produced a number of original songs, ten of which are featured on his first CD release 'Calling Cards' which goes out under the name Sharkstation, follow
this link
for a detailed review.

We talked about Simon's time with 801 and later involvement with Random Hold.

So how did the involvement with Phil Manzanera come about?

"I’d first come across Phil in the late 60s / early 70s at school (Dulwich College, south London), he was a couple of years ahead of me and already something of a hero, so we were all really pleased when Roxy took off. He was guitarist with a band called Pooh and the Ostrich Feathers, Charlie Hayward was their drummer and they later evolved into Quiet Sun. By 1976 I had started writing and playing myself so I sent Phil a tape of my songs. He soon got back to me saying he hated the songs but liked the voice and would I come and sing on his album. Naturally I jumped at the chance, an extraordinary piece of luck. Anyway Phil’s friend and bass player Bill MacCormick was detailed to check me out, I was invited round to his house and we just jammed all afternoon, it was all very free flowing and worked well. I was in, I was convinced I was going to be a rock star."

The studio album Listen Now came out of a lot of half finished bits and pieces that Phil Manzanera had lying around, to which Ian and Bill MacCormick added lyrics and melody lines and generally knocked into shape. It took a long time to put together, the first tentative recording commenced around December 75 and lasted through to July 77, along the way featuring a cast of thousands including Simon Phillips, Dave Mattacks, Mel Collins, Eno, Francis Monkman, Eddie Jobson, Kevin Godley and Lol Creme. The song lyrics reflected the composers’ disillusion with the political and social climate of Britain at that time. Simon Ainley was lead vocalist throughout.

"Listen Now was a great album, it had a mood to it, rather dispassionate and cold with a hard edge, it was finely crafted with lots of overdubs and fine tuning. I did loads of takes for the vocals, it all had to be note perfect."

A tour of college venues was subsequently organised in late 1977 to promote it, and the Manchester University gig recorded on 24 track for posterity. Quite why they waited 20 tears before releasing it is a mystery to me.

"We began to rehearse for the tour, I got a temporary job as a van driver in London during which I endlessly played tapes of the songs to get them into my head. The Manchester gig was towards the end of the tour [produces scrap book of cuttings kept by brother] and what really made it special for me was the fact that I’d been studying architecture at Manchester University only a year before. On such a course you do three years in college then a year out for work experience, so all my contemporaries went out for their work experience and I said I was off to become a rock star, about which they were naturally very sceptical. They came back after a year and there I was onstage with a bunch of famous musicians, so you can see why it was such a special gig for me."

There were special guests as well.

"Roxy’s Andy MacKay (pictured below, extreme left) turned up with his horn and played on three numbers, Listen Now, Out of the Blue and Remote Control all of which are on the live album. Kevin Godley and Lol Creme provided highly enthusiastic backing vocals and miscellaneous percussion. There were lots of other tracks that could have been included, That Falling Feeling, a slower number, was particularly effective. I remember Glasgow was a good night, John Martyn was backstage knocking back copious quantities of scotch and indulging in a mutual admiration session with Phil."

"The album was fun, the tour was fun but it soon became obvious that really it was all about making money, or not as in this case. After we finished the tour I was unsure if we had a future. We’d never written anything, were we a real band or were we just a bunch of session musicians brought along to do the tour? We tried out a few things which I still have on tape somewhere. I contributed a couple of songs and added a middle eight to another that became Slow Motion TV on the follow up album K Scope, but things took an unfortunate turn when the sessions began. Naturally I was expecting to do the vocals but on the first day of recording at Chris Squire’s studio I had a dreadful cold. I couldn’t hit the notes and it sounded awful. Tim Finn (later to find fame and fortune with Crowded House) was there, a different voice which they liked and to my dismay he got the job. In the end my only contribution was rhythm guitar on a couple of tracks."

Shortly after the sessions for K Scope were completed Roxy Music reformed and Phil Manzanera’s solo projects went on hold. Financially it made sense, but Roxy were never a potent musical force again. Despite these disappointments Simon Ainley’s luck still held. Those of you who like me chanced upon a rather obscure English band in the late 70s / early 80s called Random Hold, read on.

"My profile was still pretty high after 801 and I was approached by
David Ferguson
(keyboards) and David Rhodes
(guitar) who had both been at the same school as me, but a couple of years behind. They were writing some pretty extraordinary stuff, just the two of them with a tape recorder. My playing has always had something of a blues feel, so at first they struggled to integrate me into their very much non blues sound. The music and rhythms had a very European feel, very Kraftwerk influenced. My Eric Clapton / BB King licks were clearly inappropriate, and Ferguson and Rhodes were suitably brutal with their comments. I had to do a bit of thinking for the first time in my musical life to somehow reach a compromise and make it work. I curbed my natural inclinations and began to play more economically, making every note count, to complement the Rhodes style. Things improved significantly and new material evolved. Bowie’s Heroes was a significant reference point, we would use the Bowie/Eno cut up technique for lyric writing, and the guitar work of Carlos Alomar was a major influence. It was now three of us and a machine, but to give us more options, particularly with the live set we felt we needed a real rhythm section. The first drummer we had was technically sound, but was a bit older than us and never really fitted in, but it showed how a real drummer could enhance the sound. In those days (78/79) rhythm machine technology was rather primitive, there wasn’t much scope beyond bossa nova, tango and basic 4/4 rock."

"Bill MacCormick came along to see us and we played really well, huge dark slabs of rhythm and melody, layer building upon layer. He was very excited, he wanted to be part of it and was invited to join soon after, so now we could get rid of the backing tapes. Bill was a great bass player, his style was so inventive, he added other dimensions to the music, counter melodies and other bits and pieces. He definitely benefited from not having learnt to play through the usual routes. By this time the original drummer had been replaced by David Leach who we had discovered playing in some college band, an outstanding drummer, very loud with a few nice touches."

"The whole sound began to open out and become more accessible, although not to everybody, we did get bottled off stage whilst playing support to Adam and the Ants at the Rock Garden in London. We were getting better and people were beginning to take notice and before long we found ourselves with a recording contract. Peter Gabriel liked us, he came to see us quite a lot."

After Random Hold David Rhodes made a successful career with Peter Gabriel and he was still a major player in Gabriel’s band on the last tour in 93/94.

"Rhodes was always a brilliant guitarist, I remember him from school, in those days even he played the blues but that soon disappeared. His playing became very uptight and introverted with Random Hold but then opened out again as he made his career with Gabriel."

The Gabriel connection resulted in Peter Hammill, who was part of the same management company, being asked to produce the first the first Random Hold album.

"About a fortnight before we were due to go into the studio we were signed up by Gabriel’s management company. Gabriel had hit a musical block and we were all scheduled to go down to his place in the west country to help him get something together. Everything was going well, we were lining our first single and we had lots of strong material. My own playing was important to the overall sound, I had lost the obvious blues influences, the interplay between Rhodes and myself was working well."

Unfortunately Simon Ainley’s lucky star had burnt out.

"Around this time I’d become romantically involved and was perhaps a little distracted but I was never less than fully committed to the band. Out of the blue they called me over for a drink and a chat, so I turned up at the pub and within about five minutes was being told I was out. They said I wasn’t taking it seriously enough, yet I always gave it everything. I suspect there may have been a hidden agenda but what it was I can only speculate. There was no logical reason why they should do this at such a crucial moment, it was the culmination of everything we’d worked for. It was such a shock I just stood there and took it. I could have argued until I was blue in the face but they’d clearly made up their minds. I’m not convinced Bill was in favour of my dismissal, I guess he had to take the stronger side as things were rolling, the group had reached a critical phase. He didn’t do much of the talking that night, just chipping in occasionally."

Drummer David Leach was jettisoned at the same time, rather dubious claims about his physical fitness and health being cited. Ex Glitterband drummer Peter Phipps was recruited, Simon Ainley was not replaced. In hindsight these sackings were the beginning of the end for what was a very promising band that was starting to make waves. A big feature in Melody Maker had made them hot property and a number of record companies were chasing them before they signed up to Polydor. I saw the original five piece Random Hold at Oxford Polytechnic in Feb 79 and was completely knocked out by the powerful songs and dramatic sound. The rock solid growl of Bill MacCormick’s bass underpinned the contrasting guitar styles of Ainley, more blues / pop, and Rhodes, more dissonant and jagged. The later quartet were still excellent but a little unbalanced without Ainley, too much shade and not enough light.

"After the split David Leach and myself got together a publishing deal, and Polydor were still quite interested. They gave us some studio time and we got a few things together. One of the songs was called 5 into 25 which was about the subsequent legal action taken to recover our share of the Random Hold advance. The publishing company gave us a year to get something out but nothing much happened so I gave it all up."

If you imagine Joy Division as number one in some fantasy gothic new wave rock chart then Random Hold would have a strong case for being number two. In the overall scheme of things they deserved some recognition, even if their undoubted potential was never completely fulfilled as a result of some disastrous internal politics. Perhaps a compilation CD covering the best of the Peter Hammil produced sessions, plus selections from the excellent quality demos, would show that Random Hold were more than just a footnote in the history of rock n roll. Phil Manzanera currently has most of the Random Hold masters and demos in his possession on loan from Bill MacCormick. Maybe Phil’s Expression Records, also responsible for the release of the 801 Live at Manchester set, could get something together.

So what of Simon Ainley now, almost 20 years on?

"After quitting the music business I returned to complete my training as an architect. In this capacity I worked for British Waterways, later becoming a waterways manager in the Midlands. Within the last year or so I’ve revived my musical aspirations with a local group called Dementia. I have a good writing partnership write with another band member and we probably contribute about a third of the current live set. We’re hoping to record some demos in the near future."

I look forward to hearing them. Thanks to Simon for his time and enthusiasm.